The Costa Concordia was an Italian cruise ship that cost $570 million to build. In 2012, the ship made contact with an underwater rock and capsized hours later, claiming the lives of at least 30 people. The wreckage off the Tuscan coast became a metaphor for Italy’s corrupt and unstable economy and politics. Director Paolo Sorrentino alludes to this in his stunning 2013 film The Great Beauty.
The ship continues to be a point of fascination. Photographer Jonathan Danko Kielkowski, who we first learned about on Peta Pixel, recently went aboard the ship to document the wreckage. He writes on his website:
The sinking of the Costa Concordia, which occurred almost exactly 100 years after the Titanic, is often interpreted as a portent for the ongoing European crisis. It was August 2014 when I decided to swim onboard the remains of the Costa Concordia and document what was left after the ship was under water for over two and a half years and before the dismantling process started.
Kielkowski collected his photos of the Costa Concordia in a book published by White Press. See the photos on this Instagram.